A Multi-Fandom Series of The 1960's

Other News… (A Method to The Madness)

Gary sent a little boost my way.

I also realize I’m going to have to hit any M*A*S*H* sites for information of what might be going on with Hawkeye after the Korean war… which means I should double check stuff on “After M*A*S*H*” especially, though I don’t believe he was ever on that spin-off. There may have been possible mentions.

Next up… a Dark Shadows timeline? Anything on the order of that? Well, story lines, which of course are a massive jangle in the space-time-continuum. I went through the DS Almanacs sent to me as gifts. Wonderful lists. Then a great admin of my first DS group, which I sought out as protection to only go to, in the beginning, posted the list for me from the DS Wiki (the site I used frequently years ago).

1

Victoria Winters

1 to 127

125

109; 110

2

The Murder of Bill Malloy

46 to 126

79

109; 110

3

Laura the Phoenix

123 to 192

69

131

4

Jason McGuire

193 to 275

82

226

5

Barnabas the Vampire

205 to 209

85

226

6

The Search for Barnabas’ Cure

291 to 365

75

7

1795

365 to 466

100

369; 391

8

Adam and Eve

466 to 636

169

533; 634

9

The Dream Curse

477 to 536

59

533

10

The Werewolf

627 to 700

73

634; 653

11

Quentin’s Ghost

639 to 700

61

653

12

Return to 1796

657 to 667

11

13

1897

700 to 885

184

802; 824

14

The Hand of Count Petofi

778 to 883

104

802; 824

15

The Leviathans

886 to 980

91

895; 914; 920; 921

16

1970 in Parallel Time

969 to 1060

92

17

1995

1061 to 1070

10

18

Gerard Stiles

1071 to 1109

39

19

1840

1110 to 1198

85

1135; 1155; 1175; 1180

20

1841 in Parallel Time

1186 to 1245

59

1208

All right! So, what have I done that I cannot undo or re-do? I interrupted at about #5 in this list, but continued in a weave-through and into story line #9. I didn’t have the full set, so I did most of this from memory alone. Steps in the thick of it are somewhat out of place but, hey… I’m only one person here. I’m still suprised I got it all this accurate. I asked a beautiful new friend for help to recount where Tom Jennings came in. (I remember in a podcast I mentioned losing track of what was going on because of the rental company missing various disks, so I was balking where I’d brought Tom in.) She resplendently found DS. ep 554. Thank you!

Regardless, I’ll be watching most of the series over again, someway, somehow. *knock on wood* Among various other series and movies. Ah!

The question remains… am I going all the way through #20 in this list? Not bloody likely. As the ghost of Caleb explains to Barnabas in my 15th Episode, “And my connections swear there will be none of that parallel time nonsense.” (Which, of course, requires that he has to tiredly explain what the hell that even means. In The Pit of Ultimate Dark Shadows, at least for what I can recall via the weave-in, there was no going back and messing with Lt. Forbes in order to help Victoria Winters and Peter Bradford because? They didn’t fall back into the 1790’s but instead took a road-trip and went to these places instead:

All right. It doesn’t exactly look like a corner brew pub from The British Isles. Victoria Winters and I were a little tired from the long drive. So sue us. (Oh, whoops! I’m broke from this project! There’s nothing left to sue!)

With these factors in tow, it isn’t likely Barnabas Collins is going to understand Parallel Time until he returns from the dreaded Kitty=Josette retcon. (Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short, is the alteration of previously established facts in the continuity of a fictional work.) But how will this work? Heck, how the hell does Maggie Evans already remember being both Kitty Soames as Josette Dupres and the original Josette Dupres?

Meanwhile in Schooner Bay, there really isn’t much of the music score to find for the television version of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir beyond the theme song. Going back to my old influences when I had less music for Dark Shadows I bent in the direction of familiar composers or music the same composers might use. (Similar to adding Santo & Johnny to be heard on the radio or at The Blue Whale.) For what I found on who composed the music for our Captain Gregg and Carolyn Muir?

Not sure why my sources place these chaps in this order, but at least the information was there, so I can take a look around at what they might have done on the side. Again, I won’t worry too much about adding anything as I don’t see Captain Gregg coming back until Episode 18 in The Pit of Ultimate Dark Shadows, but it’s good to get the ideas flowing for creation again. It’s been a long time since my adopted set sail for newer adventures together (December 2013, to be precise).

Oddly enough when I poked around the DS Wiki I noticed a link that said, “Here’s What Really Happened to Barnabas & Co.” Well, I guess that’s what the TV Guide wrap-up decided to title what at the end is written as, “No audience will see these stories playing out. But for those for whom the characters were real, these are merely signposts pointing the direction the characters might have gone.”

There is vaguely more Willie Loomis salted in than I recall… but in either case? I am persuaded to believe that wrap-up just as much as I believe this one:

Are listeners floored by the radio drama because they don’t believe this either? Very likely.

In all of these things, as we stagger onward into the telling of this multi-fandom fiction, based on another multi-fandom fiction, the pieces keep falling into place. The odds are against us struggling away from what we’ve been programmed to do: Say happy things only in cliche’s and pronounce negativity with an amazing detail of description and adjectives.

But the supernatural tempts us to question our existence. As my husband enjoys proclaiming, “Ghosts? Sure… Werewolves? No problem. Vampires? Great… Reincarnation??? That’s ridiculous!” Ah, my sweet love, perhaps our listeners feel it’s too close to the bone. All life works in stages, and if reincarnation be true? It also is a form of existence that works in stages from one life time to the next, rather than mortally stepping through infancy, childhood, adolescence, the teenage years, and then the longest stretch: adulthood.

We, all of us, are part of a collective more complex and profound than any other animal life on this planet. But complexity frightens us…

Josette Dupres’ complexity frightens us. So? We simplify her.

Barnabas Collins’ complexity overwhelms us with it’s alienation, shame, self-doubt, love and aspirations. So we invalidate him and augment his character into various forms.

The heart of the matter is that changeability means being human. It is the ultimate darkness from which we can’t escape, but try to, in so many trivial distractions. The reason that Barnabas Collins irritates us so much, why we try to push him into corners where he refuses to fit? That is a reflection. Something we have a hard time looking at. That’s why I must ask:

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2 thoughts on “Other News… (A Method to The Madness)”

“So sue us. (Oh, whoops! I’m broke from this project! There’s nothing left to sue!)” HA HA HA HA HA HA! That’s hilarious, Daryl! The wiki has been my guide as well, so I appreciate it much. It’s good that you’re leaving off parallel time since it IS too much and complicated to work from. Loved the screen shot from Clue! 🙂

Ah, thank you! I’m glad this is the first thing I woke up to today. (Minus a phone call with Mum.) And yes, I look at the complexity and I just go, “All right… there is only so far I can go.”

Plus the Paralllel Time groupings I can see as methods to keep the original Dark Shadows on since a lot of North American television is based on the principle of continued production from fans and sponsors. Back then there were no re-runs, and stopping is largely based on cancellation rather than reaching an end result in the story, or stories. And the paychecks that come in from backers and advertisers are incentive to worry less about variables in continuity.

Thanks on the Clue shot! It was so funny when I saw the TV-Guide article titled, “This is what really happened…” I was like, “Hmmm! Where have I seen this before?”